Bill McHenry feels residents in Fraser are being “soaked” with high water bills and finding out the reason why has been elusive.

“For the last few years we’ve been ticked off at our water rates,” McHenry, 50, said outside his Fraser home on Tuesday. “The city bills us in units, and we’ve been billed for 7 units with two of my kids in the house. Now it’s just me and my wife at home and our bill has been as high as 11 units. That gets under my skin.”

When it comes to water and sewer bills across Macomb County, virtually every community has a story to tell about rising costs.

In Fraser, questions have been raised about the high cost of residential water and sewer bills and in particular a service charge the city instituted a couple of years ago for a newly installed Hayes Interceptor Project to replace a 60-year-old sewer line.

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While suggestions have ranged from turning water bills into a tax so residents can write off the bills to upgrading the city’s water meters, there are no clear answers.

“Nothing is quite as simple as it sounds,” Fraser City Manager Rich Haberman said Monday. “The public can vote under a referendum to go under debt service portion and move it over to taxes and pay as a millage, but that would have averaged about $15 to $20 more a month.”

Haberman is not a politician and would rather view sky-rocketing water bills stripped down from politics.

“In the end we essentially have $4.2 million in fixed costs allocated over our customers,” Haberman said. “That fixed cost we have no control over - no matter what you do with the water rate system.

“You can move the debt service over and it does require a referendum,” he said. “The City Council asked, ‘when is best time to do a referendum?’ We said to look at February or March, but the concern was the turnout during those (winter) months. That was the debate.”

Haberman said the new fixed charges since the city moved its debt service over are back on water bills.

“Those costs don’t go away, they are just shifted from one pool to another,” Haberman said. “The question is: Who would benefit? In my analysis, it identifies specific people, and water use forms that line — either above or below that line — very selfish.”

Haberman said when he took over as city manager in June 2010, the city had a deficit of over $800,000, and water rates had not increased.

“Not only did we have to catch up but also there were increases,” he said. “So I’ve advertised to pay that over a three-year period. If we had done it all at one time it would be a 42 percent rate increase at one time.

“The council preferred we advertise over a three-year period — they felt that would be better,” he continued. “It was a decision the council felt was a more palpable way. The bills were what the bills were.”

First, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) raised water rates in Fraser more than 8 percent, and Macomb County and Oakland County Drain Districts, along with DWSD, increased sewer rates by 10.6 percent.

“Detroit Water and Macomb County were still sending us bills, and we had increasing costs going along with an existing deficit,” Haberman said. “We sent out a payment plan, and we always pay from behind.”

The average household in Fraser uses approximately 750 gallons per unit, which varies starting with low-end users who pay about $20 a month for fixed costs, plus usage costs.

“The biggest frustration is we have a fixed charge that is modified by the usage,” Haberman said. “Higher end users had a higher fixed cost, and are used to a rolling 6-month average.

“The summer usage (bill) comes up in December, and there are complaints of ‘why is my water bill so high in the winter,’ but that (bill) is based on usage from the summer,” he said. “It is so hard to explain. We asked Council to set it one time on July 1 and keep the same fixed cost for the entire year. But that’s not working any better than the other. The only thing it did was have the same people complaining, instead of a whole new group because of the rolling average.”

In the case of McHenry, his residential water bill arrives each month. In September, his home was assessed a bill for $76.22 for 36 days in August and September. His bill consisted of: $12 for water, $1.50 for motor charge, $24 for sewer, $1.27 for recycling charges, and $37.45 for ready to serve charge.

“My daughter lives in Sterling Heights and she pays $32 a month total,” McHenry said comparing costs. “My city is a big mark-up from where my daughter lives. I think Fraser is soaking us residents for water to pay for a lot of other activities in the city.”

Haberman gets it. He understands the frustration residents have over high water bills, in some cases where residents are seeing an over 50 percent increase. Largely to blame were “fixed costs,” which increased in Fraser from $3.33 per unit to $6.82 per unit.

“It’s just there’s not a whole heck of a lot we can do at this level,” said Haberman, adding taxes can be claimed on income taxes while fixed costs to water bills cannot. “Cost is what they are.”

Still, Haberman said he is looking at improvements on residential and commercial metering to invest money.

“People have to go out and read meters, so we are looking into technology that saves money by reducing labor costs,” he said. “When I looked at fixed costs of $4.2 million, I only have control over one-third of that. We end up with a lot of limited options.”

Haberman said as far as the city’s newly installed sewer lines, Fraser was put under an administration consent order from the state of Michigan that gave the city what he calls “an unfunded mandate.”

“That cost ran close to $10 million,” he said. “The question was to either maintain six different pump stations or a straight gravity feed system. Over the years, it was decided a gravity feed system over a long period was better. That’s a policy-type thing. And I would have recommended gravity feed as well.

“When I took this job I had to comb the history in Fraser and what decisions were made,” he said. “But I am not a policy maker and a decision maker.”

Fraser Mayor Doug Haggerty was unavailable for comment Monday and Tuesday though he has actively engaged city residents on the subject in a Facebook group.

Still, McHenry believes the amount of money residents are paying for water and the service they receive is “horrible.”

“The only thing we can do is get a group of residents together and find out why all our water bills are so high,” he said. “I’ve lived here since 1994 and progressively our water bill has gone up. We’ve been at 11 units, 6 units, and 7 units — that 11 units drive me crazy. I think we have double rates than other communities, and we need to find out how to lower them.”